Hit soap ‘Beyond the Gates’ gets crossover love, two more guaranteed years

In late January, villain Hayley Lawson, played by Marquita Goings on CBS soap opera “Beyond the Gates,” is hiding in a broom closet on set at Assembly Studios in Doraville after a tornado at a political fundraiser.

But the director, Steven Williford, isn’t quite satisfied with her look. “Should there be more dust on Hayley?” he asks.

“No,” a crew member reassured him. “It won’t be easy to see.”

Even with a light layer of dust, Hayley looks soap opera fabulous in a key scene set to air Friday during a series of four crossover episodes with six actors from CBS’s top-rated “The Young and the Restless” who traveled from New York to Georgia to shoot the scenes.

In a crossover episode featuring actors from "The Young and the Restless," Eric Braeden (left) as Victor Newman and Brandon Claybon as Martin Richardson appear in the June 10, 2026, episode of "Beyond the Gates." (Courtesy of Quantrell Colbert/CBS)

“Beyond the Gates,” which debuted early last year and airs daily at 2 p.m., has become ahit for CBS, a surprise on par with a tornado hitting Fairmont Crest Country Club on the show.

As the first new daytime soap opera in a quarter century and the first hourlong soap with a largely Black cast, “Beyond the Gates” was a major financial gamble for CBS at a time when skeptics considered this genre a dying breed.

So far, it’s paying off with a combined 1.91 million average daily viewers between CBS and Paramount+, according to Nielsen, better than its time-slot predecessor, “The Talk.” Ratings among 25-to-54-year-old women during its second season have beaten ABC staple “General Hospital.”

Fans are active on Reddit, Facebook and podcasts. And the soap is selling merch, such as $149 ChelseaKat purses.

As a result, CBS recently gave “Beyond the Gates” two more years, meaning the show is guaranteed to be pumping out episodes through the end of 2028.

Michele Val Jean, showrunner and head writer for "Beyond the Gates," has worked in soaps for 37 years, including "Generations," "General Hospital" and "The Bold and the Beautiful." (Courtesy of Sonja Flemming/CBS)

A lengthy renewal

When Michele Val Jean, “Beyond the Gates” showrunner and head writer, heard about the unusually lengthy renewal, “it blew me away. I never saw that coming,” she said.

Stephane Dunn, a Morehouse College film and pop culture professor who has been watching soaps for decades, said she too was surprised by the news given a backlash against diversity efforts since President Donald Trump came to office. Over the past 18 months, CBS dropped a 50% diversity quota across its unscripted programming and canceled “The Neighborhood” and “The Equalizer,” two shows with prominent Black leads

“The renewal flies in the face of political mainstream trends,” Dunn said.

At the same time, Dunn said “Beyond the Gates” is maturing and finding its groove: “It feels like it’s getting more comfortable becoming its authentic self.”

"Beyond the Gates" is a bona fide hit for CBS, a soap that is guaranteed life through 2028. This photo from the June 10, 2026, episode features, from left, Karla Mosley as Dani Dupree, Sean Freeman as Andre Richardson and Bryton James as Devon Winters. (Courtesy of Quantrell Colbert/CBS)

CBS shows commitment with crossovers

Another sign of CBS’s commitment: this week’s crossover episodes, including the appearance of Eric Braeden, who has played Victor Newman on “The Young and the Restless” for a whopping 46 years.

Jean, who lives in Los Angeles, was able to watch live feeds of the taping from her home and found it “so much fun to see all those ‘Y&R’ people. It was a lot of long nights. They shot until midnight almost every night.”

Julie Carruthers, an executive producer, said the producers and writers gathered to create storylines that made sense for both soaps. Newman comes to town to speak at a fundraiser for Congressman Martin Richardson (Brandon Claybon) before a midterm primary. Newman’s longtime nemesis, Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman), is in the audience as well.

The tornado, causing broken windows, wind (via huge fans) and chaos in the ballroom, forces characters together in ways that will drive multiple plotlines moving forward.

“Some of the things that happen when they are locked in together will still play out months later,” Carruthers said. “It’s some of the best production we’ve done to date.”

Clifton Davis (left) as Vernon Dupree and Tamara Tunie as Anita Dupree in "Beyond the Gates." (Couretsy of Quantrell Colbert/CBS)

A historic idea

Val Jean, who has worked on soaps going back to 1989, said she never thought this soap opera “would ever see the light of day.”

But Sheila Ducksworth, hired by CBS Television Studios in 2020 to diversify programming, worked with the NAACP to conceive a 21st-century modern soap. She asked Val Jean to design a show centered around a wealthy Black family in a gated community outside of Washington, D.C.

Jean’s idea: “What if Diana Ross had married Martin Luther King Jr. or John Lewis?”

Ducksworth liked it and told her to create a “bible,” soap opera parlance for a comprehensive, constantly updated blueprint of the “Beyond the Gates” universe.

On Jean’s daily morning walks, “I just channeled the characters and how they connected and what made them messy. I’d come home and jot things on index cards. I got good advice from someone who said, ‘Don’t write it for a couple months. Let the show breathe in your head. When you get to the three-month mark, the show will be there.’ They were right.”

So far, the soap has featured secret family members, the death of a major character, an abduction and a mysterious villain dubbed “The Impaler,” who stole hospital blood and sold it to desperate donors.

Despite being set outside of D.C., the soap steers clear of real-world politics. But Jean said CBS gave her a wide berth to pursue potentially controversial stories.

For instance, she wasn’t sure CBS would stomach a Season 1O incident where two racists make homophobic, racist remarks to patriarch Vernon (Clifton Davis) and his gay grandson, Martin, that ends in Martin killing one of the men in self-defense with a tire iron.

“I was worried about how authentically we could do that,” she said. “It was a pretty horrifying moment in Martin’s life, but I got nothing but support.” (Fans largely empathized with Martin’s actions but not the way his grandfather subsequently covered it up.)

"Beyond the Gates" features six cast members from "The Young and the Restless" coming to Fairmont Crest during episodes airing the week of June 7, 2026, on CBS. From left are RhonniRose Mantilla as Chelsea Hamilton, Peter Bergman as Jack Abbot and Susan Walters as Diane Jenkins. (Courtesy of Quantrell Colbert/CBS)

A boon for Atlanta TV and film

The show generates a whopping 250 hours of new content every year. In the meantime, primetime TV has cut back season orders to save money, and streaming services are happy to hand out 10-episode runs to even its most successful scripted series.

“Beyond the Gates” has also been a boon for the beleaguered Atlanta TV and film business, which has seen massive shrinkage in recent years. More than 200 crew members now work full time year-round at Assembly Studios in a business notorious for unstable work. There are 20 regular cast members and 35 to 40 recurring characters on air.

“We don’t have a lot of turnover,” Ducksworth said. “The heads of departments have been very much intact. It’s been great to have that consistency. We have built an A-team that is in this for the long haul.”

Carruthers moved to Atlanta for the show, along with some of the on-air talent and crew. “Knowing we’ll be here for awhile has been a spectacular boost for everybody who is working so hard,” she said. “People are saying, ‘I can register my kid at that school. I can get on the waiting list for this.’ It’s good all around.”

Unlike most TV shows, soaps are built to potentially last for decades, like ABC’s “General Hospital” (started in 1963), Peacock’s “Days of Our Lives” (1965) and CBS’s “The Young and the Restless” (1973) and “The Bold and the Beautiful” (1987).